Tag: MRT

Ah. It sounds like a station in verdant nature. Surrounded by 50 shades of green, one might imagine Woodlands station to be sweet smelling with flowers and music flowing from the birds…

NOT.

Also the second station of the future Thomson East Coast line (TEL2), it will be a stop in a few years time (like 2020 or sometime close) that connects to a line going over to Johore Bahru… how convenient! Imagine seamless travel to Malaysia for your shopping and culinary fix… you need to be in the little red dot to understand our obsession to search for ‘cheap and good’ food… it’s almost a national pastime.

Now until that time there is a lot of construction going on here at the point Mel was in the neighbourhood. But that does not mean there is no kampung spirit around here! One more thing. Like Marsiling station (NS8), a lot here was undeveloped. Mel recalls vaguely the MRT line being constructed as he marched across newly cleared fields back in the early 90s. Wow, so much has changed.

Yep one station number skipped if you noticed. Perhaps they will add a station in the future? Marsiling used to be a training ground during national service days for and infantryman that Mel was… today it’s an urban jungle instead… so much of all these you see are relatively new. But there was a time when blanks were fired even as residents wake up in nearby flats… imagine that…

So it was such a surprise for Mel as he walked the neighbourhoods taking shots photos where once upon a time he would have been swatting mosquitoes! What a transformation indeed. This will be a recurring theme you hear, of how the places we share have changed. Doesn’t it sound similar in your country?

Fancy visiting a farmer in Singapore? Surprised that we would even have them? Well there is more than one of them. Now one may have to take a bus for a little distance for that, but that would surely be an outing for any visitor to our little red dot, including red dotters.

Get to the Sungei Buloh nature park here from this station. But you can also stay for the horse and Kart races… yeah they have them both here. Alternatively you can join the queue and take the bus to Johore Bahru (Malaysia) from here too until the MRT connects to the other side… whenever that happens…

But if you want to safari with Pandas, then read how to get to the Zoo and River safari here. Quite a happening place huh?

Definitely very new estate named after an old village. Did you know in the Teochew Chinese dialect the name of the station means “oil pond” 油池? And at this point it all really ends – residential that is. If you do come here the canal walk separating it from the industrial area is a definite must, because it is so scenic in the morning. If not, at least come for the cat… heheh…

Oil pond or not, it is one of those HDB new towns we call them. Pretty much new and further away from the glitzy skyscrapers that tourists are more familiar with. Will you spend more time exploring this former pond?

It’s relatively new, this suburban town that is. One that is located close to curent military training grounds and you might on occasion hear the roar of jets from nearby Tengah airbase. And it could have been Mel and Suan’s home if not for the quota… heheh… story for another day. It is also the first to be served by light rail (LRT) that links it to Bukit Panjang (DT1 station).

Thus in case the line is down on the east-west line for folks here, they can take the LRT over to Bukit Panjang and towards the city using the downtown line. No, the place was not the estate of a Mr Choa, but it was a true backwater of our little red dot. Can you imagine that! Interested to come here for a stroll?

Not too far is the Ministry of Defense… just behind the ‘little Guilin’ (桂林) – it was an old granite quarry that filled with water. Disused for a long time and mostly ignored… and then suddenly everyone thought it looked like those scenic views one gets in China. We assume you know where that is…

Well, you’ll need to shift your angle of photography a little to make sure those apartments do not appear in the picures as ours do.

A pretty cool place for a stroll, come here to watch terrapins. Mel caught a cat eating grass here. Perhaps it was looking for herbs?

But what is in the name of this place? Here’s a thought : try Google translator to have the word ‘Gombak” translated into English. What did you get?

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